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I was sitting one day behind my typewriter, my mind an absolute blank, staring
at the even blanker paper and chewing once again at a well-chewed fingernail.
The rain was pouring down outside the window - yes, it even rains in New York
City - and life felt very depressing indeed. While I slumped there, crunching
my fingernail, I became aware of another crunching sound not too far away.
Leaning forward, I saw that a grey mouse was working on the remains of a piece
of toast on the floor. He crunched away industriously, stopping now and again
to wipe the butter from his whiskers with his paws, sitting up to do this,
then getting right back onto the job of toast-crunching. Amazing! Here in the
heart of a big industrial city was a field mouse, native to the woods and
meadows, yet adopted completely to a wholly artificial environment.
It gave me pause to think. As mankind has progressed down through the ages we have carried a host of parasites, companions and free-loaders along with us. I am sure that the hairy caveman scratched at fleas in his thick pelt, then stepped on a few black beetles before going out to knock off a hairy mammoth or two for dinner. And while he was away the mice would sneak into the cave to have a quick nosh of the remains of his last meal. And the mice are still there. As mankind has moved from cave to tent to hut to city, so has mousekind moved right along in his wake. Is it too much to imagine that the glass, concrete and steel buildings of the future will all have their mouse populations as well? They will be there. Right along with their more unwelcome relatives, the rats. Stainless steel buildings will have stainless steel rats. And in that chain of thought was the beginning of an idea... Not only will there be mice and rats in the cities of the future, but there must be human beings who just don't conform; people who are born into a society but aren't too happy with it. People who like to live their own lives in their own way. Many times the way they want to live brings them into conflict with authority. Far too often they find the life that everyone else lives a little boring and would like a bit more excitement in it. What would a man be like in, this future world who did not like this world? A man who stepped outside of the rules of society and lived by his own rules? Well... Enter Slippery Jim DiGriz, the Stainless Steel Rat. A super-dropout. He makes his own way through the galaxy and enjoys every moment of it. The anti-hero who does all the things we wish we could do ourselves. And gets away with it. Of course Jim has his downs as well as his ups. But he recovers and charges back into the fray. I have always enjoyed writing about Slippery Jim, and so far have recorded four books about his adventures. But many times people ask me where he came from, how he began. Well, you might say he started as a mouse, turned into a rat - then just grew and grew after that.
Harry Harrison |